When President Zardari’s government forces and Nawaz Sharif’s opposition protesters clashed on the streets of Pakistan over the weekend it confirmed this prediction I first made over a year ago:
Having rid the country of bogeyman Musharraf (who at least enforced some degree of stability), Zardari and Sharif now seem determined to plunge Pakistan into sectarian political warfare that will make the conflict between Sunni and Shia in Iraq seem like a schoolyard row.
And this political warfare will not only raise questions about Pakistan as a responsible nuclear power but also compromise its ability to fight insurgent terrorists on the real front in the war on terror; i.e., on the border regions between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
[Pakistan’s ruling coalition falls … duh, TIJ, August 28, 2008]
But when I previewed these imminent clashes in a commentary last Friday, I did not foresee that Zardari would cave-in so easily to Sharif’s demands. After all, Zardari had not only reiterated his refusal to reinstate the judges who inspired these protests but also deployed forces and barricades to contain the protesters.
Yet, before the government forces had a chance to administer the kind of brutal crackdown that former President Pervez Musharraf ordered them to do so frequently, Zardari dispatched his prime minister to announce that he would reinstate the politically martyred chief justice and scores of other judges forthwith. Thus victorious, Sharif then called off the “Long March” to the capital to force Zardari’s hand.
President Obama and other Western leaders have hailed Zardari’s capitulation as “statesmanlike.” But I fear that it will only embolden Sharif, his erstwhile coalition partner and wannabe successor, to exact even greater concessions to curtail Zardiri’s powers.
This in turn will inevitably lead to demands for Zardari’s head on a political platter – just as he and Zardari demanded, and eventually got, the head of Pervez Musharraf.
Therefore, instead of ensuring political stability, Zardari’s concession may have just sown the seeds of his own demise. And so it goes….
Related commentaries:
Trouble on the march in Pakistan…again
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